At Wheatfield's Infants and Nursery school we value Geography as a meaningful, engaging and practical subject which gives our learners opportunities to understand the world around them. We ensure that the children understand their immediate environment such as their home and our school before moving on to the UK and the wider world. We believe stories are the key in taking children on imaginative journeys to broaden horizons and therefore curiosity on other places. We intend to develop children’s curiosity and a fascination of the world and its people that will remain with them for the rest of their lives.

Children at Wheatfields show a love of Geography and a great curiosity about the world around them and the people in it. Many children are passionate about the planet and looking after it. As a school, we want to enrich these experiences. Therefore, our Geography curriculum offers a range of opportunities for investigating places locally, nationally and around the world for example; whole school initiatives such as 'Switch Off Fortnight' with the help of our year two sustainable ambassadors and our ‘Global Families’ events that explore life in other countries. We cover the knowledge and skills required by the National Curriculum on a broad range of contexts which link to our Curriculum themes. Examples of these themes include; 'Carnival of Learning' allowing children to research and present their own findings as part of a home learning project or whole school trips to places like 'The Seaside' where the children embark on new journeys to alternative environments.

Each year the children will have the opportunity to develop their map reading skills using age appropriate maps in different environments. Another key feature of the Geography curriculum is fieldwork. Through fieldwork, pupils encounter geographical concepts first hand and connect their learning in the classrooms with the complexity of the real world. Through observing, collecting data for themselves, analysing it and describing their findings, pupils learn how to observe and record the environment around them. Geography fieldwork questions at our school have included; What wildlife exists in our forest school area and what can be done to improve the variety? How could our school playground be improved? What human and physical features are there at the seaside? These fieldwork enquiries have included digital mapping, creating emotion maps, gathering results on a tally chart and plotting results on a bar graph. These Geography opportunities have also developed plentiful cross curricular links with Maths, English, History and Art.

Ultimately, we intend to improve children’s geographical vocabulary, map skills through fieldwork and geographical facts while also providing opportunities for consolidation, challenge and variety to ensure interest and progress in the subject.

What Geography means to us

"An Ocean is the big sea." Nursery child.

"Kangaroos live in Australia where my Grandad lives." Nursery child.

"Rockpools are on holiday and you can search for crabs and pretty shells." Nursery child.

"Autumn is a season and the trees have red, green and yellow leaves on them." Reception child.

"Brazil has a jungle with parrots and cheetahs living in it." Reception child.

"There's a long river in Brazil and snakes live in the rainforest." Reception child.

"We can draw a map of the town to help the penguin find his way home."

Year 1 child.

"I use maps with my mummy in the car to get to new places."

Year 1 child.

"People and animals don't go on a map because they move."

Year 1 child.

"Geography is about recycling and looking after this planet."

Year 1 child.

"A birds eye view is when you look down on something like you are a bird in the sky."

Year 1 child.

"Maps show you countries all around the world but pirates also use maps to find their hidden treasure."

Year 1 child.

“Geography means learning about the world and finding out about different countries.”

Year 2 child.

“We know that Africa is the second largest continent in the world.”

Year 2 child.

“There are 7 continents in the world and 5 oceans which we learnt through a song.”

Year 2 child.

“Maps use a birds eye view and the co-ordinates help us locate key places.”

Year 2 child.

“Geography is when we learn about the world and how to protect it.”

Year 2 child.

“Geography means looking at different environments, habitats and countries all over the world.”

Year 2 child.